Some Assembly Required

Exodus 40: 1-33

So the tabernacle is ready. The workers are done and God tells Moses to set it all up. It's like we've been reading a behind the scenes at IKEA account and now the shipment has arrived and Moses has to put it all together, that's, of course, if IKEA made fancy, golden stuff.

God tells Moses that on the first day of the first month he's to begin putting it all together. He's to set up the tabernacle, put the ark of the testimony inside it, and shield the ark with the curtain. He's to set up the table- and everything that goes on it. He's to set up the lamps on the lampstand that he's to bring inside. He has lots of other detailed things to deal with too- the gold altar of incense, the altar of burnt offerings, the basin (and water for it), the courtyard, and lots of curtain arranging.

Moses is then to annoint the tabernacle and everything in it, making it all holy. The altar of burnt offerings will be "most holy." He's to bring Aaron and sons to the entrance and wash them, dress Aaron in sacred garments, annoint him and consecrate him (which seems redundant? Unless one is the action and the other is something spoken?) and then Aaron will serve as priest.

Repeat process for Aaron Jr.'s, "(15)Their anointing will be to a priesthood that will continue for all generations to come". This strikes me as both interesting and odd. ALL generations to come? Where are they now? Is God suggesting that their annointing begins the line that ends with Jesus who is still our high priest? I'm guessing that isn't how they interpreted it then, but if it's not pointing to Jesus, I'm not sure what to make of it.

We get lots of detail about Moses finishing up the assembly of it all. And this was apparently how he celebrated New Year's Day- year two.

Does Moses do this by himself? God tells Moses to do it and it says that he did. Is their something about the sanctity of what's being done that excludes everyone else and only Moses is involved? Is it too avoid a "too many cooks" scenario? Or is it just that God told Moses and he orchestrated it, ran the show, saw that it got done?

I think it's pretty cool that they refer to the opening of the tabernacle as the second year. It's obviously been more than a year since it all began back in Genesis- it's like they're starting over. Are they counting time from when Moses came back down the mountain. Are they saying, the passing of this law is significant enough that we're measuring the future from that moment? We've really been following You for this long...

Kind of makes the idea of birthdates and being "born again" something interesting to ponder too. I'm 37, but I haven't marked time from the day I was baptized, or the day I decided to stop messing up, or the next day I decided to stop messing up, or the next day I decided...

But maybe this small detail shows how significant their devotion was. OK, it's not practical to count time from your baptism date (if you were an adult when it happened)- it's not very helpful to doctors, the DMV, the guy selling cigarettes, etc., but theoretically it's cool to consider yourself only so old based on your second life.

Or maybe that was just an odd translation. In which case, never mind.